Völkisch nationalism (German: Völkischer Nationalismus, lit. 'Folkist nationalism') is a German ultranationalist, ethno-nationalist and racial nationalist[1][2] ideology. It assumes the essentialist design as Völker (lit. "peoples") or Volksgruppen (lit. "ethnic groups"), which are described as closed ethnic-biological and ethnic-cultural units within a hierarchy of such populations. Völkisch nationalism influenced Japanese minzoku nationalism.[3]
At times, Völkisch nationalism was a broad and predominant ideological view in Central Europe, represented in numerous nationalist, explicitly antisemitic and other racist associations of all kinds with many publications and well-known personalities. In some places today, such as Germany, Völkisch nationalism takes the form of ethnopluralism.[4]
Völkisch nationalism means the rise of their own Volks defined by common descent, culture and language, and the desire for a homogeneous population by excluding foreigners. The people become a collective subject. It forms a hierarchical value of the Völker.[5]
German social scientist Helmut Kellershohn [de] calls seven core elements of a Völkisch nationalism:[6]
Towards the end of the 19th century, the movement gained influence over the political and cultural debate in Central Europe. Its historical significance was found in its own nationalism, especially in the German Reich. German Protestantism is considered to be its social support and its "necessary ideal condition".[7] From an ideological perspective, the "bourgeois-Protestant mentality" has become increasingly German-Völkisch since the Reichsgründung (lit. "Establishment of the Reich"). A nationally charged Protestantism of the Reich thus led to the Nazi concept of the German Christians.[8]
The Völkisch movement, to which the German national associations and the NSDAP belonged – whose party organ was the Völkischer Beobachter – rejected the Weimar Constitution and represented Völkische Gemeinschaftlichkeitskonzepte (lit. "ethnic [German] concepts of community"). The biological and cultural homogeneity of the "Volks" as a "Abstammungsgemeinschaft" (lit. "community of descent") and the "exclusion or destruction of the heterogeneous" were invoked. Völkische (lit. "nation", "ethnic") concepts such as "Volkstum", "Lebensraum" and above all "Volksgemeinschaft" were widespread in large parts of the German population and especially within the "Fatherland Camp", thus an integral part of the Nazi programming.
From the postwar era to today, Völkisch nationalism is rejected by the mainstream German political circles. But with the rise of right-wing populism since the 2010s, these political movements have grown somewhat again in Germany; Der Flügel (2915–2020) was the name of the Völkisch nationalist and right-wing extremist group within the Alternative for Germany.
